The Handler Read Online Free

wasn’t so much a matter of searching, as seeing with my mind and understanding in order to control it.
    “Once inside,” I said, “do you search for a particular part of the mind, in order to manipulate it?”
    “No.” She shifted feet and let out a tight sigh, like I was pulling the words out of her again. I balled up the oily rag and dropped it on the rack, waiting for a better answer.
    She watched me, hesitated, then finally said, “I don’t spend any more time in the muck than necessary to get the job done. I just jack in, wish for them to behave differently, and then they do.”
    Serena seemed to manipulate instincts intuitively, instead of directly like I did. Which meant she wasn’t truly a handler, or at least not like me. That created a hollow feeling in my stomach that I tried to ignore.
    “What did your old Clan think about that?”
    Her shoulders hunched up. “They weren’t quite as understanding as you, love,” she said. “Tossed me out on my ear, actually, because I couldn’t quite control it. See, I can make anyone, even your sister, with her head like a bank vault, into my best friend or someone else’s worst enemy. I don’t know how, precisely, and it doesn’t always go the way I plan. Sometimes… something goes wrong. And I think, did I do that ? Did I really turn him into a monster that would be capable of…” A black cloud of fear instinct swallowed half of the color churning through her mind.
    “What happened?” I asked softly.
    She blinked several times, like she was holding back tears. “I was having an argument with the Clan leader’s brother, and he got a bit cheeky with me. Physical, actually.”
    The muscles in my shoulders tensed. “Did he hurt you?”
    “I’m fairly sure that was the intention.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t help myself, I had to stop him. And then something went wrong. He turned on a younger jacker. By the time the others stopped him, there wasn’t much left of the poor boy’s mind. There was nothing I could do—once it started, I couldn’t stop it. It was like I had unleashed something horrible inside him…”
    She peered up at me, eyes shining. I put a hand on her shoulder, feeling it quake underneath her thin t-shirt. A jacking skill as powerful as Serena’s needed to be mastered, simply to keep anyone else from being hurt. I mentally reached out to embrace the inky cloud of fear that had spread through her normally tumultuous mind.
    “It’s all right,” I said. “We can learn to control it together.” I exhaled slowly, focusing on wrestling that black instinct back into the depths of her mind and bringing on a flood of peaceful yellow, like the sun breaking through storm clouds. Her face brightened with it, and before I realized what she was doing, she had pulled my face down into a kiss.
    The shock of it washed through me, along with a heated breeze from the purple tentacles of her mating instinct. Her lips pressed hard into mine. I didn’t stop her, but my lips barely kept up with hers. It had been so long since I had kissed anyone—mindreaders never held any interest for me, and the icy bath of my instinctual defenses kept most female jackers away. There had been one girl, before I came into my ability, but she never suspected what I would become. Serena leaned into me, seeking to deepen our kiss.
    I pulled back.
    Her cheeks were flushed, her lips tinged pink with our kiss, and her eyes wide with expectation. It was completely the wrong thing to say at the moment, but I said it anyway.
    “I think you should stay with us for a while.”
    Her smile told me that was just what she wanted to hear.

I stood at the kitchen sink, working the grease stains off my hands while trying to keep the ice-cold water from splashing my collared shirt and dress pants. The formal attire seemed more appropriate for greeting our first recruit than my earlier dirt-smudged black t-shirt and jeans. Although I supposed this was our second recruit, now